Former Golden State Warriors Sleepy Floyd is photographed before the Warriors game against the Oaklanhoma City Thunder at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, April 11, 2013. (Ray Chavez/Staff)

OAKLAND -- We in the Bay Area have been fortunate enough to witness perfect games in baseball, 200-yard rushing performances in football, consecutive 50-point games by an NBA player and championships won in the boxing ring.

None of these achievements surpasses what Sleepy Floyd produced in 13 minutes.

On Mother's Day 1987, with Floyd and the Warriors on the brink of being swept from the playoffs by the imposing Los Angeles Lakers -- the Showtime Lakers of Magic and Kareem -- Sleepy swooped down from the heavens to deliver a performance that was the competitive equivalent of Moses' parting of the sea.

It was done once, only once, and never again.

Golden State Warriors' Eric "Sleepy" Floyd (21)drives to the basket past Los Angeles Lakers' James Worthy, left, during their playoff game at Oakland Arena in Oakland, Calif., on May 10, 1987. Floyd scored an NBA playoff record-setting 29 points in the fourth quarter, 12 field goals in the same quarter and 39 points in the half, to lead the Warriors to a 129-121 victory over the Lakers. (Reginald Pearman/Staff Archives)
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"I can't go anywhere without people coming to me and asking about it,'' Floyd recalled Thursday, sitting in the Oracle Arena Courtside Club. "They may have been at the game, or watched it on TV. They may have lived in the Bay Area and people still remember that game. They still talk about that game."

They ask because they still can't believe. They talk because they'll never forget.

With the Warriors trailing 98-83 late in the third quarter and the Lakers anticipating a series-clinching win in the Western Conference semifinals, Floyd, who would finish with 51 points, summoned powers from another universe and fought back.

"They talked a lot of trash, and they could back it up,'' Floyd said of the Lakers. "But it got to the point where we had enough.''

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In one four-minute segment -- the final minute of the third quarter through the first three minutes of the fourth -- Sleepy scored 16 points. The 6-foot-3 point guard scored 26 of the Warriors' 28 points during one eight-minute stretch.

With a dazzling array of drives, dunks and medium-range jumpers, Sleepy scored 34 in one 11-minute stretch, sending an extended surge of voltage through the sellout crowd at what was called the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

"He took Michael off me; he was done,'' Floyd recalls, grinning. "He took Byron Scott off me. He was done, too.''

Floyd's flurry torched not only the guards, including Magic Johnson, but also forwards A.C. Green and Mychal Thompson. On Floyd's penultimate hoop of the night, a drive to the hoop, 7-foot-2 center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spun and turned away as if trying to avoid a left hook. The ball dropped into the basket.

Floyd's final 13 minutes single-handedly generated a 129-121 victory that preserved a measure of dignity for the Warriors. Though it did not turn the series, which L.A. won in five, that 29-point quarter still stands as an individual playoff record.

Yes, it beats anything ever done in any quarter, of any playoff game, by Larry Bird or Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. It beats the memorable 25-point quarter Reggie Miller hung on the Knicks in 1994, outdoes the unforgettable performance by LeBron James in which he scored Cleveland's last 25 points to beat Detroit in the 2007 postseason.

"After the first couple baskets went in, it just became so instinctive,'' said Floyd, visiting the Bay Area for the first time since All-Star Weekend in 2000. "The team got behind me. Our coach, George Karl, wasn't even calling plays any more. He was just making sure they gave me the ball.

"It was an amazing time. It just seemed like everything came together.''

Floyd, 53, makes his home in Charlotte, N.C., where he serves as the national spokesman for Comfort Revolution, which, naturally, specializes in sleep products.

He says he last watched the game -- widely known as the "Sleepy Floyd game,'' about a year ago in Charlotte. He was visiting friends and they put it on the screen.

"Everything slowed down for me,'' he said. "It felt like I was wide open. But when I look at the tape and see the difficult shots I made, I see most of them were contested. It was just a perfect storm of events.''

It was one sustained burst of electricity that is unsurpassed in Bay Area sports history.

As the current Warriors seek to craft their own postseason tale, they'll have to find some serious magic to match it.